233 of 266 people (88%) found this review helpful4 people found this review funny

Recommended

7.7 hrs on record

Posted: June 19, 2014

Analogue: a Hate Story certainly isn't billed as a feminist game. It's creator, Christine Love, cheekily describes it as being more about transhumanism, traditional marriage, loneliness, and cosplay. Maybe that's true. All I can say is that as a man, the game struck me as unflinchingly feminist. Now, I don't mean that in a confrontational, all-men-are♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥pigs straw feminist sort of way. Hell, maybe feminism is not even the right word for it, maybe it's just a game about female experiences presented matter-of-factly. Ladies, this may seem obvious to you. But to us males, this is a wholly unsettling and unexpected revelation.

The story as outlined is simple and humble enough. You, a private detective (in space!), travel to a recently discovered wreck of a space ship, which had been previously lost for thousands of years. This ship once held an entire nation of people as it traveled to a distant planet. Somewhere along the way, the ship's inhabitants died out completely. It's up to you to sift through the ship's computer data (with the help of artificial intelligence friends) to discover the fate of the lost nation.

If you're like me, that story sounds fairly pedestrian so far, right? But the ship's recovered computer logs tell a much different, much more personal story.

Over thousands of years, this isolated society has regressed in both education and culture to the whereabouts of 15th century Korea. Despite living on an impressive space-faring vessel, and being assisted by futuristic artificial intelligences, its inhabitants are mostly simple farm folk who know little of the ship, or the universe, around them. And just like in 15th century Korea, conditions for women are horrifyingly bad.

The AIs ask you personal questions throughout the game, such as who you are, where you're from, and whether or not you've visited Pyonyang. You know, getting-to-know-you stuff. The first time I played through, I was asked if I was a male or female, and I answered honestly. I played through the game, and that normally would have been the end of it. However, there's a Steam achievement for playing through a particular ending as both a male and a female, so I played the same ending again. As a female, the writing changes. In this new scene, it was all I could do to not reach through the computer monitor and slap that AI around until the smug falls out.

This AI's dialogue is fairly standard and neutral as a male, while as a female, the AI's dialogue is condescending and dismissive of everything you say. As a male, this concept that I could be disregarded so easily was a bit shocking.

Is Analogue a FUN game? By no means. In fact, there's a race-against-the-clock mission (in a visual novel!) that really should have been heavily altered. But its story is solid, and compelling enough to make you overlook its flaws. Even weeks later, the story stuck with me, haunting me, making me question every interaction I've ever had with women over the course of my life.

128 of 147 people (87%) found this review helpful1 person found this review funny

Recommended

5.0 hrs on record

Posted: January 10, 2015

What would you do if you were to wake up tomorrow, having been thrust into a completely foreign society? Being greeted by your "new family" who tell you what to say, what to think and even how to feel in order to not violate their social norms? Being told that your identity, the place you carved out for yourself in the world, is long forgotten, but that they already have a new role good and ready for you? That your dreams no longer matter?

This fate, among many others, is one of the gears in the complex machinery that would end up removing all traces of life from humanity's great hope, the huge pioneer starship Mugunghwa, in Analogue: A Hate Story.

In this unconventional sci-fi/mystery visual novel, you are a space investigator hired to find out the truth about what happened to the Mugunghwa and how it got lost on its mission to settle foreign planets. Arriving at the wreckage and linking up to the ship's computer, you are greeted by the archival A.I., who offers to help you sort through the letters, reports, and diary entries of the people who lived on board before a mysterious catastrophe killed everyone. You quickly learn that very little is as it seems, and there are so many personal motives wrapped up in the situation that actual honesty is hard to come by.

The presentation in Analogue sets up a computer-y atmosphere with abstract backgrounds and actual in-story explanations for things like the multiple choice "dialogue wheels". The effort put into the art is largely concentrated into the two highly detailed on-screen characters, who delight with a plethora of poses and facial expressions to convey their emotions. The soundtrack, especially the characterthemes, features recognizable melodies (sometimes in several variations) realized in a consistent style that works extremely well with the atmosphere constructed by the rest of the story.

For most visual novels, the user interface tends to be an afterthought, and only rarely is it a point of contention in a review. Analogue, however, eschews the medium's tradition of a branching linear narrative and forges its own path in regards to navigation inside the story. In essence, every piece of text that you can find is one of the "files" of the ship's archive that you can view in any order, and you can also talk to the A.I. or drop back to the command-line interface at any point. This provides the player (a term that I use deliberately, because for Analogue, being a mere "reader" really isn't enough) with a high amount of agency that few visual novels choose to provide. It also creates a proportionally high number of opportunities to fail, for example if the player is not quick on their feet when it comes to using the computer terminal as the situation requires.

This sets up an interesting contrast with the main character's agency in the plot. After all, many years have passed since the events you read about and there is no way to influence the outcome or to save anyone. The only thing you can do is to find out the truth. There is a present-day plot involving the main character and the two artificial intelligences that still reside on the ship's computer, but the focus is on the mercilessly unchangeable past.

The people on the Mugunghwa lived in a surprisingly traditionalist society with strong codified gender goles and rampant classism. The members of the noble families all struggled for power, but no one seemed to heed the big picture or pay any mind to the ship's course. It was a troublesome situation in which a little girl from hundreds of years ago was awakened from cryostasis. Her family hoped that the Pale Bride might bring them salvation, but what could she do to find her way in a society that was so radically different from the one she knew? You notice early on that she seems to be somewhat of a focal point for the events on board following her reawakening, but how does she factor into the eventual genocide? What caused the ship's undoing? And why do the two A.I.s despise each other so much?

Analogue is, at its core, a mystery story. While it is still a visual novel and you can gloss over most of it without really internalizing it and still get to the end, it is a more rewarding experience to actually untangle the relationships of the characters and understand how their motivations propel them to do what they do. There aren't really any mechanics in place to support this endeavour, other than the family trees that the A.I.s helpfully provide you with. I found that my enjoyment of the story increased significantly as soon as I started taking my own notes with pen and paper. I would encourage you to do the same, because otherwise it is very easy to lose your perspective as you wade through the countless documents, each colored by its author's perceptions.

Bit by bit you wrestle the truth from the ship's archives, and slowly you piece together the puzzle until you are able to see the full picture in all its horror. All aspects of it, from the psychological through the sociological to the interpersonal themes of the story, paint a drab picture of loneliness and despair. It poses the uncomfortable question of whether the ship's population as a whole might have been beyond salvation for who knows how long, doomed many years before the finale of the story; whether the event that put an end to all biological life on board was merely the logical conclusion, much like you would turn out the lights when you leave an empty room. It's hauntingly honest in its depiction of the darkest depths of the human soul, and after completing the story for the first time, it left me with a strong feeling of unease about what any one of us might be capable of, given the right circumstances.

It does also have its lighthearted moments, and even though visual novel connoisseurs will find many tropes and clichés conspicuously absent, Analogue coquets with the expectations carried over from its genre siblings in certain moments, such as when one of the A.I.s invites you to dress her up in various outfits. It's no stranger to fun and there is plenty of clever humor to be found in the data logs and the A.I. banter.

The overall execution in this VN is so congruent and polished that any perceived shortcomings almost have to be rooted in personal taste. Some people might not care for the minimalist presentation, others might have preferred a more linear way of storytelling, yet others may have their reasons for not wanting to read a story where gender inequality is a prominent theme. But judged on its own merits, I can find nothing but praise for Analogue: A Hate Story within me. It's unique and interesting, and if you think that a mystery visual novel with deeper than average gameplay mechanics might intrigue you, I can recommend it without reservation.

This is ancient history now, but for a while, back around 2005 or so, there was a perception, largely created by a single translation group, that the "visual novel," a format of linear text adventure that grew out of the Japanese PC games scene, might actually have something to offer beyond cheap titillation. They chose short, indie works like narcissu, Planetarian or OMGWTFBBQ, melodramatic stories of finding that last emotional connection in the moments before your early and miserable death. And then they pretty much stopped doing it (at least for free), because, hell, translating this stuff is a pain, and that was the end of that.

Analogue feels much like the promise of those earlier works. Written in English by a native speaker and skilled writer, with a great sense for how to use the interactive features of the format to really draw you in, in a way that "an ordinary book" can't. It's smart, somber, and complicated; it's a well-told story, and not just "for video games." And really, I just have a thing for simulated terminal interfaces.

75 of 90 people (83%) found this review helpful1 person found this review funny

Recommended

13.3 hrs on record

Posted: October 27, 2014

I will start off by saying that I am a great lover of Visual Novels and games of the sort.

I will admit that coming into Analogue: A Hate Story, I was fairly skeptical and I wasn't sure what to make of it. The only real negative was that I found the game did not make it very easy to get into and I felt like the user interface was a little bit unclear in sections. A factor that I have no doubt would initially put people off.

Little did I know that later on I would come to the conclusion that this game is worth every second I invested into it. The story is incredible once you have managed to piece things together and after some time you begin to learn new things and discover new secrets. The level of depth and thought that has gone into the creation of this game is incredible and I would reccommend everybody to play it. There are some fun little additionals which are added into the game through the use of the command centre, which is a nice little addition which I haven't seen implemented in too many others.

At £6.99 it is incredibly reasonable for a visual novel and there isn't really a good excuse not to buy it.

There's no doubt that Steam has been flooded, for better or worse, by visual novels as of late.

Now, don't get me wrong, Indie titles are great, but amidst the endless stream of "waifu"-bait visual novels (VNs) you'll see here on Steam, I think you'll be hard-pressed to find many decent stories with an intriguing plot that aren't about getting in a girl's pants for an affordable price. That's par for the course when discussing visual novels, but that's also why I tend to trust VNs from well-known studios/devs, because at least you know you'll get plot while playing VNs of acclaim like Clannad, the Grisaia Trilogy, or The Devil on G-String in exchange for their premium price.

But, let's rewind time back to 2012, when Gangnam Style was top of the charts around the world and every tween and their literature teacher was dying to see Shaky Camera: The Movie The Hunger Games. In this archaic age of yore, there were, quite frankly, no good visual novels on Steam, save for one: Christine Love's Analogue: A Hate Story. Back then, I wasn't sure how much story ten bucks could really buy, but boy I was surprised.

Analogue eschews all the teenage high-school setting jazz you'll see in 99.9% of visual novels out there. Instead, it opts to tell the fate of a ruined colony ship, the Mugunghwa, in a decidedly sci-fi setting. It does this with considerable polish.Analogue's presentation is simple, nothing more and nothing less required to tell its story, letting you explore the lore of the ship's mysterious downfall at your own pace as you literally read through logs like the investigator you are supposed to be. At the very least its more interactive than half the VNs on the market, with a very entertaining minigame thrown in halfway through the story.

Now then, you can hold off on impulsively buying those tempting 11 Anniversary Lootboxes in Overwatch since for those same ten bucks, you get a substantial story and can brag to your friends all about the "Joseon" Era of Korean history.

And at the end of the day, what's more important? Getting yet ANOTHER Tracer legendary skin or knowing what "Joseon" means? You be the judge of that question.

Just uh...don't blame me if your 10 bucks gets you neither of those, in the end.

Pros

Absolutely riveting plot

Cute AI girls

Different outfits on a whim for Cute AI girls

More game interaction then smashing "ENTER" every 10 seconds

Stop a nuclear explosion with your hacking skills

A feminist game that makes sense

You can achieve the impossible dream every indecisive teenage Light Novel main character wishes they could make by quite literally cheating the system

Cons

No voice acting, but that's completely fine

Relatively short, but there actually is a sequel so more playtime there too I guess

Learning about how unpleasant people from the Joseon Dynasty could be is disgusting, but that's the point

Not that I care but its based off of Korea and not Japan so you "purists" may have some beef with that.

43 of 54 people (80%) found this review helpful4 people found this review funny

Recommended

6.8 hrs on record

Posted: July 24, 2015

This is a visual novel that does not overly rely on anime tropes, but instead draws from the darker points of Korean history, places the plot in a distant transhumanist future and uses this seemingly incongruable mishmash as a setting for a social commentary. While the game has been called feminist, I would actually say it goes quite a lot beyond that.If you are interested in sentient AI's, dark family dramas and human rights issues, you might enjoy this strange little gem.

I bought Analogue: A Hate Story on a lark. It was on sale, and I was bored, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm a big fan of the science-fiction and transhuman genres, and Analogue seemed to offer a bit of both.

I was not prepared for what this game had to offer.

Perhaps calling it a "game" is a bit generous. It's an interactive novel, with almost no action sequences to speak of. The closest you'll come to any sort of twitch-reflex or quick-time events is typing into a terminal while an angry countdown clock stares you down. But still, there are choices to make and consequences to pay, with five potential endings - four of which can be carried right into the second game, Hate Plus.

Don't go into this game expecting action and excitement. If you're looking for that, then you're in the wrong place. But if you enjoy a gripping tale of political intrigue, psychological horror, and surprisingly dark themes - then this is absolutely worth the price of admission. Don't let the cute, anime-inspired artwork fool you. This game is absolutely for adults, and not because of any sexual themes or nudity (although there IS a bit of the former).

If there's anything to complain about, it's perhaps the usual drawback of an interactive novel. It's relatively linear, fairly short, and light on replay value. Oh, sure, it's worth trying for the different endings (most of which require their own distinct play-through), but you'll still be forced to read a lot of the same letters and dialogue. And, while the writing is absolutely fantastic, it still gets repetitive the second or third time through - especially once you've learned all of the twists and turns that the story has to offer.

But still - if you're into mature, psychological tales of intrigue and murder, then this game is absolutely worth at least ONE play-through. You won't regret it.

It was one of those things that just stays with you, and you keep thinking about it the rest of the day after you’ve played it. It’s also not that long– I got 98% completion in, according to Steam, 2.8 hours. So it’s more than worth the investment.

There are two stories here. The frame story is that you are sent as part of your job to go through the records of a recently rediscovered lost ship/space colony that has been gone for hundreds of years. You head over and start sifting through the log files with the help of the ship’s AI. The second story is what actually happened on the ship. The setting is simultaneously a future dystopia and a past dystopia– the frame story takes place more than a thousand years in the future, while the secondary plot takes place six hundred years before that.

It’s hard to describe the game without getting into spoiler territory, but I’ll do my best: the gist of the secondary plot is that on this space colony, some unspecified disaster caused major social and educational regression and an extreme population reduction that ultimately resulted in the establishment of an extremely oppressive patriarchal society in which women rarely are allowed to leave the home and are often married off as young as 12 or 13. A young girl put in stasis before the disaster due to an illness wakes up hoping that a cure has been developed, only to find the world has gone to hell.

The game is simultaneously a reflection on the horrors of the past– a particularly disturbing post-game author’s note lets you know the circumstances are based very heavily on actual customs of Feudal Korea– as well as a warning about where we could head in the future. The girl wakes up and tries to tell her new “family” about her illness by emphasizing how thin and pale she is, but all the men hear is a woman’s whine and all the women hear is bragging about good looks, which would sound extreme if the exact same thing hadn’t happened to me in the past. It’s an examination of the ways women survive in such an oppressive society, and what happens to those who don’t fit the mold.

The final reveal of the girl’s storyline was something I saw coming by the time I got there but was hoping wouldn’t happen all the same.

The gameplay itself was clever, if simple. The navigation was freer than you usually get in a VN, as the interface is of a computer system you can explore more or less however you see fit– as the AI offers commentary– though the AI will dole out information based on how you interact with them so the story itself it ultimately nonlinear. In addition to reading snippets of the ship’s logs and chatting with the AI, there’s also a command input console where you can type in whatever you please to the ship’s computer. I thought the puzzles involving the commands were interesting enough to require some good thought while also logical enough to be solvable on your own.

The weakest part of the game to me was the ending of the frame story. The story itself is somber, serious, and tragic, but the AIs end up flighty, silly, and almost like caricatures. Like, after everything that’s gone on, Hyun-ae suddenly turns into terrible tsundere and decides she’s in love with you and wants to get married? What? The LAST thing she should be interested in after what she’s seen is some kind of weird relationship with a stranger. The tone shifts from torture and oppression to some kind of parody with no warning whatsoever, and it’s like she just forgets what you were looking at. It’s jarring, but also comes off as though the game doesn’t take its very, very serious subject matter seriously at all. “Oprression and mutilation destroy lives. CAN I BE UR WAIFU????” Just wat.

In the same vein, I thought calling the “best” ending a “harem” ending was ridiculously tacky. In a story where women are literally being forced into harems, just what the hell. Is it supposed to be a joke? Why is that something to joke about? Is it some weird attempt at meta-commentary on VNs? Wrong place, wrong time.

So yeah, the last five minutes or so of the game are… bad. They’re just bad, there’s no way around it. But overall? This is an engaging, emotional, tragic story with a message that hits close to home, and I really recommend it.